7% of Americans are the hard core problem

YouGov reports: “One in five voters – including 45% of Republicans – approve of the storming of the Capitol building.” This is important and bad news. I do not want to minimize it, but I would put it in context.

A bit under half of Republicans support the riot in DC. Republicans represent about 29% of registered voters. Registered voters represent about two-thirds of adults. Adults represent about three-quarters of Americans. By the time you isolate Republican registered voters who support the riot, it’s down to about 6.6% of the population.

To be sure, some of the people in the other pie slices are also part of the problem. For instance, within the “other” slice are 2% of the registered Democrats and 21% of the registered Independents who support the riot. (A total of 10.1% of all Americans support the storming.) Most of that slice consists of people who don’t have an opinion, which is a problem in itself. And among the under-18s and the non-registered people, some probably hold views aligned with Trump.

Still, it is worth putting the hard-core problem in some degree of perspective. My guess is that the images from yesterday will basically become the capsule summary of the Trump years, except for a smallish and dwindling proportion of Americans.

(Survey data from YouGov. Registration percentages from Pew, 2018. Age distribution from Census, 2010.)

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About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.